


Visitant

by moosetifying



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming Out, Couch Sex, First Time, Fix-It, Ghosts, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:15:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moosetifying/pseuds/moosetifying
Summary: Maybe the universe had resurrected Eddie as a ghost and trapped him in Richie’s home so that he could annoy Richie until he died from sheer rage and went straight to hell, Richie thought darkly. If so, Eddie was well on his way to achieving the universe’s goals.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 35
Kudos: 285





	1. Visitant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my wonderful and generous sister for so patiently reading over yet another fic in a fandom she doesn’t give a flying fuck about.

**vis·i·tant** (n) 
  1. _Literary._ A supernatural being; a ghost 
  2. _Archaic._ A visitor 



.

On a Tuesday morning, Richie woke up, opened his eyes, and saw Eddie looking straight at him, his face just a few inches away. “Crap!” Richie yelped and sat up, fast enough that Eddie flinched back.

“Holy shit!” Richie stared at Eddie, who was dressed in his polo and red hoodie, his hair neat, his chest whole and untouched, as if he had never been impaled. As if Richie had never held him while the life drained away from him in stuttering breaths. “You’re dead!”

“Yeah, I know, dipshit!” Eddie snapped back and thrust his arm down to the bed and straight through it, like it wasn’t even there.

“Holy shit,” Richie said again, and burst into tears.

.

He cried for a long time. Eddie sat and watched, looking frustrated; he’d tried to reach out to hold Richie but stopped when his arms had gone right through Richie and made Richie cry even harder. When at last the tears stopped, Richie flung himself back to sprawl across the bed, eyes sore and head aching. Eddie settled down next to him, his legs crossed underneath him. Richie noticed he was floating an inch above the bed and almost started crying again.

“So,” Eddie said. “Uh.”

Richie lay there and waited for him to say something, because personally? Richie had nothing. All he had was a month of living without Eddie, too many nightmares, and something that Bill had once called “trauma”. 

“You look like shit,” Eddie said abruptly.

Richie was aware he looked like shit. “You’re one to talk, you’re a fucking ghost,” he said to the ceiling. 

“Hnngh,” Eddie said. Richie could tell, without even looking, that he was scowling because he couldn’t think of a comeback. 

“Am I hallucinating?” Richie asked the ceiling. “I feel like I’m hallucinating. Have I finally lost it?”

“You’re not hallu—Richie, look at me. Look at me, Richie. You’re not hallucinating, Jesus. Can you please look at me?”

Richie had never been able to say no to Eddie. Apparently, he couldn’t say no to hallucinations of Eddie either. _Fuck, you have it bad_ , he thought to himself. 

Looking at Eddie still hurt, hallucination or not. Eddie’s eyes were so fucking big in his pale face; he looked panicky and out of sorts—so, just about normal for Eddie, then. If he hadn’t been floating above the bed, Richie would have almost thought he was really there. Alive.

“You’re not hallucinating,” Eddie said. “Pinch yourself, okay? Shut your eyes and count to ten. I swear to god I’m here.”

Richie did it. When he opened his eyes, Eddie was still there. 

The thing was, Richie had had a really shitty month. An endless explosive diarrhea type of a shitty month. His career was in ruins, he was second-guessing every choice he’d ever made in the past twenty-seven years, and every night, he relived the memory of the love of his life dying in his arms. The feel of his body, the way it got cold and heavy, limp. The blood no longer flowing from the open, still mouth, drying tacky on Richie’s hands and face. 

It had taken forever to wash the blood off. To scrub away every last remnant of Eddie.

Richie had spent every day of the last month on a very tenuous string. He literally did not have the strength, or, frankly, the sanity, to really think about what was happening right now.

“So, assuming you’re not a hallucination,” Richie said, trying his best to keep his voice even. “How did you get here?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “It was dark and I couldn’t think clearly, okay? All I remember is—is sitting in that cavern with a ho—” his voice broke, “with a hole in my chest, and then I was floating in this, like, empty blackness. And there was this benevolent reptile, like a turtle or a lizard, I’m not sure.”

“A benevolent reptile?” Richie repeated incredulously.

“Don’t be a dick about it, Richie. That’s just what I remember. Then I was here, standing by your bed and watching you snore. Your sheets are disgusting by the way—do you _ever_ change them?”

“Fuck my sheets,” Richie said. “So you’re telling me you just…appeared here. As a ghost. Why here? Why now? Why a ghost?”

“I don’t know!” Eddie threw his hands up. “I don’t know shit, I told you!”

Then Richie was struck by a thought so terrible he instantly broke out into a cold sweat. “Do you think it’s…you know…” 

“No,” Eddie said instantly. “No, I would have felt It. There wasn’t any of the fear or the evil slimy feeling It gave off. All I felt there in the dark was benevolence. And that…that it wanted to help.”

“What, the _reptile_ wanted to help?”

Eddie gave Richie a look so scorching that Richie immediately rushed on: “So it’s some kind of magic—possibly reptilian magic—that brought you back here, for some reason. With me.” Then another thought struck him. “Mike! Mike will know, he knows everything. He probably has a whole notebook dedicated to reptilian magic.”

“God, quit it with the reptile stuff!” Eddie snapped. 

“You’re so bitchy when you’re a ghost,” Richie said, and then instantly regretted it. He had to cover his face and breath loudly into his palms for a bit before he had collected himself enough to get back to business.

“I’m calling Mike,” he said and grabbed his phone. Mike would have the answers. Mike would fix it.

Except, when he called, Mike answered sounding sleepy and relaxed and practically high with contentment, and Richie remembered all in a rush that Mike was a month into his Beaches of America post-clown tour. 

“Hi, Mike,” he said, sounding stilted and awkward, but knowing there was nothing he could do about it. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, it’s going great.” Mike’s smile was obvious even through the phone. “I’m almost done with Florida, and trying to decide where to go next. Bill’s offered me his guest bedroom if I want to come out to LA, but I’m not sure I want to start the West Coast yet.”

Richie hung his head and felt like a terrible person. Mike had sacrificed twenty-seven years of his life to Derry in the quest to rid the world of It. Was Richie really going to interrupt him and hand him more problems in the midst of his first taste of true freedom?

“What’s up?” Mike asked him. 

“Can’t a man check in on his friend?” Richie said. “C’mon, Mike, you’re out there sunning yourself every single day, looking hot as shit and you think I’m not gonna call you to demand shirtless pictures?”

Mike laughed. “You’re sounding good, Richie.”

“Ehhhh,” Richie said. “I’m okay.”

“Yeah?” Mike’s voice was gentle. Richie glanced at Eddie, sitting across from him, and then away.

“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t worry about me. Go eat an extra ice cream for me, Micycle.”

“That, I can do,” Mike said. “Aw, crap, I gotta go. A crab’s trying to steal my book.”

“Defend the homestead, Mike,” Richie said and hung up. “So. That’s out.”

“Okay,” Eddie said, in the calm way that meant he was about two seconds from Full Panic Mode. “Okay. We can figure this out.”

Richie wasn’t far from Full Panic Mode himself. “Yup! Totally!”

“We just gotta think this out. Construct a sequence of events. Um. How long has it been? Since—since I…”

Richie sighed and scratched a hand through his hair, fluffing it up and then smoothing it down. “A month, Eds. It’s been a month.”

“Oh,” Eddie said, nodding. “A month. Okay. Cool.”

Then Richie had the dubious pleasure of watching a ghost have a panic attack.

The kick of it was Eddie didn’t even have fucking lungs or a throat to tighten up, or breath to lose. But he was wheezing away despite it all, letting out the horrible whistling sounds that Richie knew all too well.

And the worst part? Richie couldn’t even help—Eddie didn’t have a body for him to hold and soothe. All Richie could do was say, impotently, again and again, “Hey, hey Eds, it’s okay, you don’t even need to breath, you little shit, just relax….”

Slowly, Eddie calmed. His huge, dark eyes never left Richie’s face as Richie coaxed him through it; the sheer helpless panic on his face made Richie’s heart clench with pain and grief. For a moment, Richie was back in the cavern, looking at Eddie, seeing that same helplessness on his face as the blood bubbled from his mouth and chest. 

Then he was back in his dim bedroom, sitting on his tangled blanket and watching as Eddie finally settled down. 

“You don’t even have lungs, dude,” he said, scrambling for solid ground. “That shouldn’t even have happened.”

“Have you ever heard of the word psychosomatic, you absolute numbnut?” Eddie snapped, his voice thin. 

“Look, I’m gonna need coffee before we continue this conversation,” Richie said, and groaned his way out of bed, joints popping and back twinging. 

.

The panic came for both of them when Eddie tried to check out the balcony and realized he couldn’t physically leave Richie’s apartment. 

“Richie!” Eddie yelled, shoving himself at the door to the balcony and getting bounced back for the umpteenth time.

“I know!” Richie hollered back. It was disconcerting as hell to see Eddie propelled backward by some unseen force, like there was a forcefield only he could feel on all the walls.

“I’m trapped,” Eddie said. “Oh god, I’m a ghost and I’m trapped in this piece of shit apartment and I’m gonna be stuck like this forever.”

He looked on the verge of a panic attack again, so Richie hastily said, “I’m gonna figure it out, Eds. Don’t you worry.”

He had no idea _how_ he was going to figure it out, without Mike as an option, but Eddie said, “Don’t call me Eds,” with a little half smile, so Richie chalked it up as a victory. 

.

So it looked like Richie had gotten himself a ghostly roommate for the foreseeable future. 

It took only a couple of hours for it to get old. 

Eddie first made Richie catch him up on what had happened after his death (“We reported your death, Bill and I went back to LA, Stan went back to his wife, Mike went off to Florida, Ben and Bev are living together now, and that’s it, really.”), toured Richie’s apartment twice, and quickly realized he couldn’t touch anything at all.

Richie, meanwhile, googled ghosts and resurrections and every other variation he could think of, while surreptitiously throwing glances Eddie’s way.

After an entire month of pure grief, the likes of which he’d never felt before, seeing Eddie wandering his apartment, hearing him harrumph occasionally when he spotted something he particularly disapproved of, talking to him and hearing him respond, was like some twisted salvation. Richie paid for every glance of Eddie with the pained knowledge that Eddie wasn’t back, not really. 

The problem came when Eddie got bored and switched to critiquing Richie’s various lifestyle choices. 

The thing was, Richie loved Eddie. Richie had loved Eddie since the moment he’d seen Eddie, age six, in the playground, T-rex walked over (Richie was deep in a dinosaur phase at the time) and roared at him, and Eddie had turned, so neat and clean in his pressed collared shirt and little shorts, and said, in a piping, squeaky voice, “Go jump in a lake, stupid!”

Eddie yelling about things didn’t bother Richie. Historically, Richie had in fact done everything in his power to set Eddie off.

This? Was different. This was Ghost Eddie, unable to leave the apartment, unable to touch anything, unable to interact with the outside world in any way apart from talking to Richie. This was Eddie newly dead and bored out of his skull.

This was Eddie with only one outlet: Richie. And boy, was he letting it out.

Turned out, it was hard to concentrate on googling solutions to your friend’s ghostliness when said ghost was walking around making comments like, “Jesus Christ, dude, have you ever heard of scrubbing your garbage bins?” and “Congratulations. You have the nastiest bathtub I’ve ever seen in my life,” and “Lime green bean bag? As if your apartment wasn’t ugly enough,” while sounding progressively angrier and angrier. 

Maybe the universe had resurrected Eddie as a ghost and trapped him in Richie’s home so that he could annoy Richie until Richie died from sheer rage and went straight to hell, Richie thought darkly. If so, Eddie was well on his way to achieving the universe’s goals. 

“Richie, if you don’t fucking remove that old coffee cup now, it’s going to grow enough mold to become sentient and murder you in the night,” Eddie said, with an amount of fury that seemed disproportionate to the situation. “And you’ll deserve it.”

“It’s not gonna get the chance, because you’re going to kill me first,” Richie snapped. “Jesus, Eddie, it’s been like, two hours. Calm the fuck down.”

Eddie whirled around and stared out the window, which was probably the ghostly equivalent of doing deep breathing exercises. Richie watched his back and felt…sad. Tired. This whole thing would have been easier if the two of them weren’t on the edge of losing it constantly.

Richie wanted to find a hole and lie down in it until his problems went away. But he could never stand seeing Eddie upset. Really, truly upset. So Richie opened his mouth and let his heart spill out—anything to make Eddie feel better.

“I’m not angry at you,” he said. “I promise I’m not. I know you’re upset and scared. But this is hard for me too. Eddie, you died. You _died_. In front of me. I had to walk out of there without you.” _I almost didn’t walk out of there_ , he didn’t say.

When Eddie turned around, he was even paler than normal. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. I just hate this.”

“I know,” Richie said. He pumped his fist at the ceiling a few times and said, weakly, “Yay, first roommate fight!”

Eddie cracked a small smile at that.

“We’ve had a pretty rough day so far,” Richie said, wanting to keep that smile on Eddie’s face. “Why don’t we sit down and I’ll tell you what I’ve found. It might help to put our heads together and brainstorm.”

Success—Eddie smiled again, big enough that his face crinkled up and the dimples showed. “Alright,” he said. 

Eddie couldn’t exactly sit, but he could fold himself into a sitting position and float exactly one inch above a chair, so that’s what he did. Richie pulled his own chair closer and tapped his fingers on the table.

“So,” he said. “I looked up ghosts, resurrections, and benevolent reptiles. And post death experiences, people returning from the dead, and psychics.”

“And?”

“Well,” Richie said. “I found nada. But—” he hastened to add when Eddie’s face fell, “someone, somewhere on Reddit, mentioned something about a magic turtle, so I’m thinking I’ll dig down on that one.”

“Turtle,” Eddie said thoughtfully. “Yeah, that sounds…right.”

“See!” Richie said. “We’re getting somewhere.”

“This has to all mean something,” Eddie said. “Like, this situation is so weird. I’m here with you and I can’t leave the apartment or talk to anyone who isn’t you. It just feels like the universe is sending me a message. I think…I think maybe you’re the only one who can help me.”

“Help you with that?” Richie asked.

Eddie shook his head hopelessly. “I don’t know. I just keep thinking about the—the turtle, I think it was a turtle. Turtles are reptiles. I wish it had said _something_ , explained what it was doing, anything.”

Richie’s phone buzzed violently, making them both jump. “Hold that thought,” Richie said, dragging the phone towards him. He looked at the screen cautiously, saw it was Mike calling, and answered it, putting on his best posh British voice.

“Why, Michael! To what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your fine voice twice in one day?”

“You really must be feeling better,” Mike said, “if you’re doing your voices again.”

“Mmmm?” Richie said, striving for noncommittal and hitting somewhere between “suspicious” and “constipated”. 

Mike paused, almost audibly cocked an eyebrow, and continued. “Anyway, I appreciated you calling to check in on me this morning, and I wanted to return the favour, now that I’m not chasing away crabs from my belongings.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, since Ben and Bev have been telling me you haven’t answered any of their calls since we got back. And Bill just told me the same thing. And Stan. It sounds like I’m the only one you’re still talking to.”

Richie felt his eyes widen. Busted.

“You know how it is, Mikey,” Richie said. “I’ve been busy. Lot of things happening over here. Can’t always be on my phone.”

Eddie quirked an eyebrow at him. Richie waved a dismissive hand and Eddie shrugged and got up, wandering away, floating an inch above the floor.

“Busy,” Mike repeated, very gently.

“Busy,” Richie said.

More like, grief struck. Bitter. Perhaps the tiniest bit resentful.

It was just hard, seeing Ben and Bev so happy. Watching them in that quarry, laughing and lost in each other, and knowing that they had gotten their happy ending and Richie had been left with absolutely nothing.

Across the room, Eddie was throwing himself at the balcony door again, that determined crinkle between his eyes growing deeper each time he failed to get through. Richie watched him and wished, with all his heart, that the ghost thing meant that maybe, just maybe, Richie would get a happy ending. Not being with Eddie—that was something that Richie had already known would never happen.

No, Richie’s happy ending would be just having Eddie back. To know he was alive and existing. To know that Richie was standing in a world where Eddie Kaspbrak was too. For that, Richie would do anything. He’d hunt down the benevolent turtle and beg. 

Mike inhaled and Richie knew, just knew, he was going to interrogate him more about it, so he hastily said, “Hey, you ever heard of a magic turtle?”

“Turtle?” Mike said, sounding thrown. “I…why?”

“No reason!” Richie said. “Just…was hanging out on Reddit and someone mentioned something about magic turtles.”

“Well, funny you should ask,” Mike said, and his voice took on the droning quality that meant he was ready to lecture. Richie sighed and settled in. Eddie, meanwhile, had given up on the balcony and was wandering into the spare room that they had officially designated as Eddie’s room this morning—Eddie didn’t need to sleep but Richie figured having some privacy would help him feel more normal.

“I talked to a lot of people, while I was hunting down the trail of It,” Mike said. “I read all the Derry history books I could get my hands on, I visited nursing homes and sat on porches.”

“Mikey—” Richie began.

“Shhh, Richie, you asked me a question and I’m answering it,” Mike said, his voice pleasant. “I learned a lot about Derry, and a lot about It. But only once did I ever come across any mention of a turtle. Someone who’d had a narrow escape from It. She was interviewed for a history book, where it was mentioned she had a journal, so I tracked down her granddaughter, who let me read it. In one entry, she wrote something about a turtle. She said,” his voice got faraway, like he was struggling to recall the words. “That the turtle was like It, but the opposite. That’s all she said. Like It, but the opposite. Interesting, huh?”

“I—yeah,” Richie said hastily. “Super interesting. Thanks, dude. Now I can….keep reading…this Reddit post…”

“C’mon, man, give it up,” Mike said. “I can hear you lying from across the country. Lucky for you, I’m heading out on a hike early tomorrow morning and I need to go to bed now, so I don’t have time to interrogate you.”

“A hike?” Richie asked. “Tell me more, Michael.”

“So there’s this old cabin that’s completely deserted, way out in the middle of nowhere,” Mike said immediately. “The city is overflowing with rumours that it’s haunted. It’s the first thing the locals talk about with tourists in the bars. I’ve been asking around and I must have heard at least fifty different stories.”

“Mike,” Richie said. “Please tell me you’re not going to check out the haunted cabin.”

“I’m checking out the haunted cabin,” Mike said. Richie groaned and Mike laughed. “Bill said the exact same thing.”

“Please be careful,” Richie said. “Jesus, dude, was one supernatural monster not enough for you?”

“I’ve gotten used to collecting stories,” Mike said. “Talking to people, gathering the pieces, putting them together. Seeing the patterns. I think there might be something here, and I can’t leave it without digging, just a little. I need to know if there really is something. Don’t worry, I’m not going alone. One of the people I’ve met here offered to come with. And Bill’s insisting on calling me every half an hour to check in while I’m gone.”

“You’re talking a lot to Bill,” Richie noted.

“How about you don’t ask about Bill and I leave you alone about Ben and Bev and Stan and Bill?”

“Uh, deal,” Richie said. “Yeah. That works.”

Eddie came back out of his room, floating along silently, and drifted to a halt in front of Richie, frowning at him and waving a hand impatiently.

“Anyway, Mikey, I gotta go. Stay safe, please, and text me when you’re out,” Richie said, and then stuck his tongue out at Eddie. 

“Thanks, Richie,” Mike said. “I’ll talk to you after.”

Richie hung up and told Eddie, “I think Mike might have given me a lead.”

“Great,” Eddie said.

“Yeah,” Richie said, already turning back to his laptop. “Yeah, I think I need to do a little more digging. I might be onto something that could help us figure this out.”

“Great,” Eddie said again.

Out of the corner of his eye, Richie could see Eddie throw up his arms and drift away again, but then Google loaded, and Richie got busy, trying to get Eddie what he wanted: answers.

One hour later, Eddie stuck his head in front of Richie’s laptop and said, “Turn it off.”

“What the hell, Eds,” Richie said, shoving himself back. “I was onto something there.”

Eddie glared up at Richie. “I’m bored and you’ve been ignoring me for ages!”

“I’m not ignoring you on purpose!” Richie said. “I’m trying to figure this out for you. I thought you wanted to figure it out?”

“I can’t go outside, Richie. I can’t touch anything or watch TV or read a book or talk to anyone who isn’t you—and you haven’t been talking to me either. I’m—” Eddie bit his lip. “I’m…I’m lonely, okay? Being a ghost fucking sucks.”

Richie let himself slump back into the chair. “I’m sorry. I just really want to see if I can get you back.”

“I want that too,” Eddie said. “But right now, what I want is…” He glanced up at Richie shyly, and Richie’s heart lurched from how tentative he looked, the way his long lashes made his eyes look even darker. “I want to just hang out for a bit. Like we used to. I want to feel normal.”

In the face of that, how could Richie resist? “Sure, Eds. Whatever you want.”

.

So they watched three episodes of the Bachelor one after the other, while Eddie said, “Oh god, this can’t be real. Richie, please, this can’t be a thing people watch!” in an increasingly more horrified voice. Richie had a headache from laughing too hard by the end of it. 

“No more,” Eddie begged after the third one. “Please, stop.”

Richie turned off the TV and leaned back against the couch, waggling his eyebrows at Eddie on the other end of the couch, floating an inch above the cushions. “What next, my liege? I’m yours to command.”

Eddie bit his lip and gave Richie a look. “How are the others? Really. Don’t brush me off like last time.”

“I, uh, haven’t really talked to them much,” Richie said. “To be honest. Most of what I know is from the group chat.”

“You guys have a group chat?” Eddie asked, and then shook his head and charged on. “Never mind. But you talked to Mike twice today.”

“I’ve been talking to Mike,” Richie allowed. 

“What’s…what’s wrong with you?” Eddie sounded baffled. “We get our friends back and you ignore them? Did something happen?”

“Uh, did you forget the part where you died?” Richie snapped.

“I—but. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing,” Richie said, kicking his legs out so they stretched over the floor and he was looking up at the ceiling. “Forget it.”

Except Eddie was a little shit with a memory like a Venus flytrap and absolutely no ability to let things go. His frowning face appeared in Richie’s line of view. Richie blinked up at him, trying to look like he wasn’t currently screaming inside.

“Richie. Why are you ignoring our friends.”

Richie shrugged.

“Richie. Richie. Richie! I’m dead, you have to tell me. You _have_ to.” If Eddie’s eyebrows got any lower, they’d merge with his eyes and then he’d just be a human incarnation of Bert, minus the unibrow, Richie reflected, and laughed without any real humour.

“No, no, no, stop that,” Eddie said, waving a hand in front of Richie’s eyes. “Get off that thought train and gimme a straight answer.”

“Eddie, please don’t make me tell you this to your face.”

But it was clear that Eddie really was going to stay there, leaning over Richie, until Richie told him the terrible thing, the thing that had been burning Richie up for a month now and that would add only pain to the lines on Eddie’s face.

Richie told the ceiling, “I’m ignoring our friends because you died, and they all went back to their lives like nothing happened. Like they didn’t even care that you were gone.”

Eddie didn’t say anything. Richie’s brain treated him to a fun little clip of how Eddie’s face was probably looking right now: mouth falling open, eyes widening and filling with hurt.

Then Eddie said, very quietly, “You don’t know that. You haven’t even talked to them. You can’t know what they’re feeling.”

Richie sat all the way up and glared. “Oh right, you weren’t there for the part where Ben and Bev made out in the quarry five minutes after you _died!_ ”

But Eddie didn’t quail. “You’re still talking to Mike, though. Why Mike?”

Richie closed his eyes and tilted his head back, away. “Because he felt guilty.”

Because he had turned to them all, on their way to the hotel from the quarry, and apologized with deadened eyes for having gotten Eddie killed, by calling him back. Because he had told Richie, in private, that he was never going to forgive himself. Because he might be out on the beach sipping cocktails, but he had called Richie almost every night the first few weeks, when the nightmares woke him. Because the guilt was eating Mike up and Richie saw it and felt fiercely, horribly glad that someone else was feeling something too, something so utterly destroying, something that would never leave them for the rest of their lives.

Eddie fell silent again. Richie waited it out, squeezing his eyes tight so that little sparks appeared—stars, whirring and exploding until there were only three of them, three rotating points of lights drawing closer and closer—

“Fuck,” Eddie said, and Richie opened his eyes in time to see Eddie float off the couch and down the hall to his room. 

“Eddie?” Richie asked.

“Gimme a minute!” Eddie called, his voice hoarse.

So Richie gave him a minute. He gave him five minutes. And then at some point, he woke up and it was dark outside, and Eddie was back on the couch, watching Richie with a strange look on his face. Richie blinked the sleep out of his eyes and yawned, massive and obnoxious, and when he shut his mouth, Eddie just looked sour and annoyed.

“What’s up?” Richie said. 

“You should eat dinner,” Eddie said. “You were asleep for awhile.”

Richie groaned and stretched out, joints creaking and his back protesting his impromptu upright nap. “Dinner, yeah.”

When he looked over, Eddie had that strange look on his face again.

“You good?” Richie asked.

Eddie started. “Yeah, I was just thinking. About things.”

“Things?”

“Yeah, uh. Life. That kind of thing. Everything looks different on this end, is all.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

“Maybe later,” Eddie said. “C’mon, Richie, you haven’t eaten anything in hours.”

So Richie ate dinner while his dead best friend watched him, and then Richie brushed his teeth while his dead best friend watched him, and then he wished his dead best friend goodnight and went into his room and lay in bed staring at the ceiling for an hour while the grief pressed on him until it felt like his chest would cave in from it. 

And then Richie fell asleep and dreamt about a turtle. 

Eddie hadn’t been wrong—it really was benevolent. Richie could feel it coming off the turtle in waves, so pure and true that he knew that was the perfect and only word to describe it.

What Eddie hadn’t mentioned was that the turtle was huge. Massive. Almost incomprehensibly enormous. It peered down at Richie with eyes the size of houses as Richie floated in darkness that was only broken by the glow of stars, but Richie wasn’t scared. All he felt from the turtle was love and a sort of grandfatherly compassion and kindness. 

Suddenly, out of nowhere, he thought with utter conviction, _The turtle couldn’t help us. Not then. But it’s trying its best now._

Then Eddie was next to him, face lit by the starlight. He was still in his polo and hoodie, but there was blood staining the front of his shirt, a gaping hole there like an open maw; his face was bloody, his hair a mess. This was Eddie as Richie had left him in the cavern below Derry.

He didn’t know what his face was doing, but Eddie’s eyebrows shot up and he looked down at himself, then back up at Richie with dawning comprehension on his face. “It was like this last time,” he told Richie. “The first time. Don’t worry.”

 _We’re sharing this dream_ , Richie realized. They had both been called there. 

The turtle looked at them, with its enormous eyes. Richie could tell it was trying to convey something with that look, but he couldn’t tell what it wanted, what it was trying to say. A force drew Richie and Eddie closer together, slow but inexorable, until they were hanging there in space beside each other. The turtle’s eyes flared with light—Richie could see galaxies drifting in there, nebulas, stars, worlds being born and dying; Eddie’s elbow brushed his own, their hips bumped, and then Richie woke up.

He stared at the ceiling, panting. 

“That was so fucking weird,” he said aloud.

On the other side of his bedroom door, Eddie said, “Richie? Hey, Richie, are you awake? Can I come in?”

“Yeah, yeah, come in,” Richie called. 

Eddie—oh shit, Eddie came in _through_ the door, stepping into the bedroom like the door wasn’t a solid barrier. Jesus, it was so weird; Richie wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to it, especially since Eddie usually tried to move around like he wasn’t a ghost.

Eddie floated right across Richie’s room and straight into Richie’s bed without pause, saying, all the while, “So that was weird, right? The way the turtle was looking at us? And then we were like, being moved around?”

“Um,” Richie managed. Eddie was _right there_ , big eyes staring down at him. The blood and gaping injuries from the dream were gone; he was back to being neatly pressed, clean, and whole, if ghostly. “What time is it?”

“It’s still night, it’s dark out,” Eddie said dismissively. “C’mon, what do you think the dream was about?”

“Fucked if I know,” Richie said. “The enormous space turtle was definitely trying to tell us something but it didn’t actually use its words, so...” He shrugged and pushed himself to lean against the headboard.

“Yeah, I felt that too,” Eddie said. “I guess this whole situation—me coming back as a ghost—there’s something I have to do, maybe. Like a quest?”

“Uh huh,” Richie said, yawning.

“I don’t know what quest it would be though,” Eddie continued. “Like, you’re definitely involved, no doubt about that. But I can’t even leave the apartment so maybe it’s a quest that has to take place here?”

Richie hadn’t slept properly for a month, and Eddie’s voice, despite being kind of high and vaguely lispy and running at a hundred miles per hour, was Richie’s favourite sound in the world. So it didn’t take long before he was sliding down the bed and falling asleep to Eddie speculating about the universe’s plans for them both.

When Richie woke up, the barest hints of sunlight were peeking through the closed blinds, and Eddie was staring at him again. 

“Mmm’wat,” Richie mumbled. 

“You should have breakfast,” Eddie said which explained nothing at all, but Richie’s brain was still coming online and he didn’t feel like bugging Eddie about it more. 

“Uh-huh,” he said, and rolled right out of bed and onto the carpet in a tangle of limbs, just to make Eddie choke with laughter.

.

Richie realized after pouring out the cereal that he was out of milk.

“You’re a mess of a human being,” Eddie told him.

Richie flipped him the bird and then went into his bedroom to pull on a pair of actual pants and a clean T-shirt. Eddie was waiting for him right outside the door when he left the room, scowling with his arms crossed across his chest.

“Dude, relax, I’m just going to get some milk,” Richie said, shoving his feet into his shoes. “Maybe some bread, too, I’m almost out.” 

But when he tried the door, it wouldn’t open. Richie tugged at the knob, frowning, then tugged harder when it wouldn’t move.

“Did you unlock the door, dipshit?” Eddie asked, floating against the wall while Richie made a fool of himself failing to open his own front door.

“I’m not an idiot, Eds,” Richie shot back, but checked the locks anyway.

The door still wouldn’t open. Richie twisted, tugged, propped a leg up on the door for better leverage and pulled with all his might. The door remained stubbornly closed.

“Wait,” Richie said. “Wait, wait, wait.”

Panic sparked through him as he hurried to the balcony door—which didn’t open either.

“Oh shit,” Richie said. “Shit! I’m trapped in here too! This is bullshit.”

“Looks like the universe really is trying to tell us something,” Eddie said.

.

Richie tried calling Mike, but the turtle magic had kicked in there too. His phone turned on but he couldn’t make it do anything; tapping at the screen, typing at the keyboard, pressing buttons all did nothing. 

His laptop wasn’t working either—it wouldn’t connect to the Internet, wouldn’t let him type anything, wouldn’t let him email anyone. 

He was well and truly cut off from the outside world.

.

“I have, uh, maybe two days of food left, just about,” Richie said, staring into his fridge.

“Only two?” Eddie said.

“So I haven’t been shopping in a while, so sue me. I was busy entertaining my dead ghost friend!”

“I’ve been here a single day, asshole, stop guilt-tripping me.” Eddie said. He bounced up and down thoughtfully, which was very weird to see—going from one inch above the ground to two and then back to one. “Well, you’re stuck here just like me, and you’ll actually starve if we don’t figure this out fast enough. The universe really isn’t being subtle about this whole thing. It’s clear that this is something with the two of us. Maybe there’s something that the turtle wants us both to do.”

“The turtle is a little bitch,” Richie said, scowling, and went into his bedroom and flung himself onto the bed to sulk.

Eddie left him alone for a surprisingly long time, long enough for Richie to get bored of avoiding thinking about the problem, and to actually think about the problem. 

So the universe wanted something from Richie? Tough shit. The universe didn’t deserve to get anything from Richie. The universe had taken twenty-seven years from Richie and then taken Eddie. Dangling Eddie in front of him now wasn’t making Richie any less angry or any more willing to cooperate. 

Whatever the turtle wanted, it would have to drag it out of Richie kicking and screaming. Although it looked liked the turtle could arrange that. 

With that cheerful thought, Richie dragged himself out of bed and into the kitchen to get breakfast, because he was a man of many layers who was capable of being spiteful and hungry at the same time. That was how Eddie found him—leaning against the counter, eating his bowl of dry cereal, and scowling at nothing.

“So are you done?” Eddie asked, floating to a stop by the fridge. 

“Done?” Richie said, crunching on a cocoa puff. 

“Yeah, done acting weird. You’re driving me crazy.”

“I’m the one who’s acting weird?” Richie said. “You’ve been floating around staring at me funny since you got here!”

“I’m staring at you because you’re freaking me the fuck out,” Eddie said, in a calm voice that really meant he was about two seconds away from blowing a gasket. “You look like you haven’t seen the sun in weeks, you keep—frowning and stomping around, you haven’t made a single joke about my mom, and, and—I don’t get it! I don’t fucking get it!”

“You died, Eddie!” Richie snapped.

“Yeah, I got that!” Eddie snapped right back. “I was there when it happened! What I don’t get is how that connects with you acting like this!”

“You don’t get why I’d be sad that you _died_? Why I’d be upset that I watched you bleed out in front of me?”

The fight went out of Eddie like a punctured balloon. “Okay, when you put it like that, I…It’s just…we didn’t know each other that well. You saw me as an adult for like, two days, before I—you know. What I don’t get is that you’re not just upset. You’re fucking destroyed.”

There were things Richie just couldn’t bear to tell him. What was the point? Eddie was dead, and despite the absolute shit the universe was pulling now, there was no way that this would end well. Richie didn’t get the happy ending, see? That was what he’d figured out. Richie just didn’t get the happy ending. So what was the point in digging into himself and pulling out the thing that was buried in the deepest part of him, something that had been part of him for so long that he had grown up _around_ it?

If Richie tried to dig it up, he’d take everything else with it—his lifeblood, his very self, his beating, living heart. What was the point when Eddie couldn’t even do anything with it? When Eddie wouldn’t even want to do anything with it? Eddie didn’t want to hear about Richie’s weird gay love for him. Eddie was dead. Eddie was past it all, now. He was beyond Richie and this mortal plane both. 

So Richie looked away and said, tightly but slowly, “You were my best friend, Eddie. My very best friend. That never changed, even when I forgot you. I think part of me always missed you. If you had—had lived…I would have been calling you every day, you know. Bugging you as much as I could.”

Ghosts couldn’t cry, but when Richie finally snuck a glance at Eddie, it looked like Eddie was trying his very best. “I would have liked that,” Eddie whispered. “A lot. You were my best friend too.”

God, Richie was so sick of crying. He turned away from Eddie and covered his face with a hand.

“Hey, c’mon Rich,” Eddie said. “You don’t have to hide from me, c’mon.”

Richie shook his head, feeling his shoulders tense up. He cleared his throat and managed, “So—uh, you had any thoughts about how to get out of this situation?”

It took a second for Eddie to roll with the very obvious conversation segue but roll with it he did, to Richie’s relief. He was feeling especially squishy and raw, like one of those lumps of jellyfish that were always scattered on the beach, and he was really not in the mood to get poked at more.

“The only thing I can think of is that maybe there’s something you need to tell me,” Eddie said. “Or I need to tell you. A message we need to pass on.” 

“Sounds stupid.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the only thing I’ve got,” Eddie said. “Look, I need you to work with me on this. I was thinking—actually, come here.” 

Richie turned. Eddie was waving a hand at Richie, his chin jutting out. He looked determined and worried, so Richie nodded and went. 

Eddie led Richie out of the kitchen and into the living room, where he pointed imperiously at the couch and said, “Sit.” So Richie sat.

“I thought this might be easier if we did it in a more comfortable setting,” Eddie said, floating to a perch next to Richie, sitting with his back against the arm so he was facing Richie head on. Richie frowned but twisted his body around so he was mimicking Eddie’s pose. 

Eddie took a deep breath and said, “I already told you about what happened to me, after. I think you need to tell me what happened to you.”

“Fuck this shit,” Richie said, and surged to his feet and was halfway across the room before Eddie said, “Richie, please.”

The pleading in his voice was as impossible to resist as if he’d thrown a physical rope around Richie. Slowly, Richie returned to the couch, hating every single moment of this, hating the turtle.

Eddie was staring at him, earnestness written in every line of his body. It was too hard to look straight at him, so Richie let his eyes rest on his own hands as he flayed himself open for Eddie’s sake.

“Um—well, you—we moved you over to that rock and then—do you remember us going after the clown?”

“Sort of,” Eddie said. “It’s all hazy.”

“Well, we, we killed the clown. Crushed its heart. And when I got back to you, you were—” Richie’s voice broke and he had to breathe deeply into his palms, squeezing his eyes shut as if his tear ducts would get the message and cooperate. “You were gone. Um. And the house started coming down around us—I, I tried to get you out but, but Ben and Bill pulled me away and—”

“Richie, breathe,” Eddie said, so Richie breathed, great gasping breaths.

“I don’t know the turtle wants, Eddie,” Richie choked out. “I don’t know what it wants and I don’t know how to help you, I couldn’t help you—” 

“Richie, shhh,” Eddie said; he reached out for Richie but his hands went straight through. Richie flinched away from the cold, empty loneliness of it all. 

“This isn’t fucking working, Eds,” Richie said. 

“I—I don’t know.” Eddie looked exhausted. “Is there something you’re not telling me, maybe? Something important?”

Richie gritted his teeth. “Nope.”

“Nothing at all?” Eddie pressed.

“Nope.”

And then suddenly Eddie was flinging himself forward from his perch across the couch, floating right up into Richie’s face. “Stop lying to me! You’re so clearly lying, you fucking shitheel!”

“Fuck you!” Richie yelled right back, and jumped up off the couch. “I don’t have to tell you shit!”

“We won’t figure this out if you aren’t honest!” Eddie screamed, floating over to join him.

“Why are you so sure that the universe wants me to tell _you_ stuff, huh? Maybe you’re the one who has to tell _me_ stuff! Why am I the one you have to nag and nag to fucking vomit up my stupid feelings?”

“As if you have any fucking idea what you’re talking about! Jesus, you’re driving me crazy, you think I can’t tell when you’re hiding something?”

“Yeah, well maybe the universe wants something else, huh? Maybe the universe is thinking something different. What if maybe,” Richie bellowed, throwing his arms out, “maybe the universe wants me to die too so we can hang out as ghosts in the afterlife! Did you think of that?”

Eddie drew back, eyes wide. “Don’t say that. Don’t say that, Richie. You need to live.”

“ _You_ needed to live!” Richie yelled. “I’m not even living anymore! I’m nothing! I wish I had stayed in that cavern with you!”

“Don’t say that, don’t say that, you’re not allowed to die—”

“I’d rather me than you, Eds. Me than you.”

“Richie—”

“I’m in love with you,” Richie said, in one long exhalation, words tripping out of him like they were being pulled along. “I’m fucking in love with you and I’d literally give anything in the world to have you back here with me.”

Then he realized what he’d said and closed his mouth with a clack of teeth. He stared. Eddie stared. The silence was thick. Richie’s secret, now exposed, hung between them. 

Richie felt sick.

“I—” Eddie said, “I—” And then he shuddered, an endless shiver that shook his whole body. Slowly, like water seeping through paper, true colour came to his face—real, living colour—and he dropped that one floating inch to land solidly on the floor. He drew in a breath, audible in the silent room, and let it out in a smooth exhale. Breathing, solid, alive.

Alive.

“Holy shit,” Richie said, and burst into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mike is having a great time on his Post-Clown-Murder Beaches of America Victory Tour. He’s gotten day drunk on those cocktails that come in a pineapple, taken naps on a number of very beautiful beaches, and has been asked if he’s a model or celebrity no less than ten times.
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://moosetifying.tumblr.com/) or [ twitter](https://twitter.com/moosetification)!


	2. Visitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie wants to talk. Richie really doesn't. The turtle attempts to intervene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kicked my butt. This chapter cornered me in an alley and beat the absolute shit out of me. I'm very relieved to have it done and up and not have to rewrite it for the millionth time. Apologies for the delay!
> 
> General warning for grief, self-loathing, Richie saying shitty things, internalized homophobia, and a brief mention of attempted suicide.

**vis·i·ta·tion** (n) 
  1. An official or formal visit 
  2. The appearance of a god or goddess or other supernatural being 
  3. A disaster or difficulty seen as a punishment from God 



.

Richie had Eddie for a full day and a half before real life swallowed him back up.

Richie spent the first five minutes of that day and a half in Eddie’s arms, sniffling into the crook of Eddie’s neck while he whispered, “Hey, Richie, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay, Richie.”

And, for those five minutes, finally able to hold Eddie and be held by him in return, finally able to feel the warmth of his body, his strong arms around Richie, his chest rising and falling steadily, Richie could actually believe it really was going to be okay.

Then he extracted himself from Eddie’s embrace, took a look at the softness in Eddie’s eyes, and remembered with a rush of pure adrenaline that he’d told Eddie he’d loved him. Richie then spent the next fifteen minutes shut up in his room panicking quietly while Eddie stood outside and knocked at the door.

“We need to talk, Richie,” Eddie said.

“No,” Richie said.

“Are you serious right now?”

Richie paused. “Yes?” he said uncertainly.

“You know what? Fine. Stay in there. I’m gonna go talk to Mike.” A heaved sigh, loud enough to reach Richie through the closed door and a muttered, “Fucking impossible….” Then footsteps, and Richie could finally draw in a full breath.

This was bad. This was major bad. This was “leak in the nuclear reactor” bad—except the leak was Richie’s fat mouth and his fucking _feelings_ overwhelming him until he let slip the one thing he really, really shouldn’t.

Eddie wanted to talk? Fuck that. Eddie was still looking at him and interacting with him after what Richie had said and not yelling at Richie for being presumptuous and creepy. Richie was going to chalk this up to a win and get out while the going was good. 

All Richie wanted was to get through this and have his best friend still actually be his friend. So: no talking.

“Richie,” he said to himself. “It has never been more important that you hold yourself together, you fucking piece of shit. Do not fuck this up anymore than you already did.”

When Richie entered the living room, Eddie was using Richie’s phone to conduct a full-on conference video call with the other Losers. 

“I swear to god, a turtle!” he said, then spotted Richie and his face lit up in a way that made Richie feel crazy. He waved Richie over. “Richie, tell them about the turtle!”

Richie leaned over Eddie’s shoulder and faced the people he’d been avoiding for a month (and Mike). “The turtle was real,” he said. “There was a fucking dream vision. This shit checked off at least five of the major ‘supernatural quest’ requirements.”

“It’s so fucking weird,” Eddie said. “I’m in the exact same clothes I was wearing when I died and I even have my wallet, but I don’t have my phone.”

“Is that why you hacked my phone, you little shit?” Richie said, and Eddie shoved a pointy elbow into his side. 

“We’re just glad you’re back, honey,” Bev said. She was crying, and so was Ben next to her, and Stan and Bill in their own little video windows, but worst of all was Mike. Mike was sobbing so hard that his whole body was shaking with it. 

“Mike,” Richie said, staggered. “Mikey, c’mon, it’s okay.”

“It is okay,” Mike choked out. “Oh god, it really is okay.” He disappeared from view and then came back with a handful of tissues.

“So what next?” Bill asked.

“Um,” Eddie said. “Well. I guess I should legally announce myself as alive. And then I should, y’know, call my wife.”

Eddie’s wife. Shit. Richie tried to keep his face expressionless, even as his stomach churned with a fresh helping of guilt and shame. Eddie had a wife and Richie had still gone ahead and dumped his stupid gay feelings all over him.

“She refused to report you as dead,” Stan said. “There’s a missing persons report out for you. So the legal bit shouldn’t be too difficult, with any luck.”

“Or with a little turtle magic,” Ben put in.

Eddie nodded, jaw flexing. “What should we tell the police?”

Together, they settled on a story that could, if the wind was right and the authorities were very dumb, be accepted as a reasonable explanation. It involved Eddie being found by a kindly stranger, spending a month in a coma in a hospital, waking up with amnesia, then remembering Richie first and flying out to see him. It was a fucking stupid story, but Mike seemed to think the magic of the turtle would come through.

“I gotta go, guys,” Eddie said. He’d grown only paler since mentioning his wife; Richie would have poked him to check he was still solid if he hadn’t been able to feel Eddie’s shoulder blade pressing into his chest.

More tears, more goodbyes, then Eddie was hanging up and turning to stare at Richie with those dark, dark eyes. “I guess I have to call my wife. Can I use your phone again?”

“Sure,” Richie said, and waited until Eddie had shut the door of the guest room behind him before collapsing on the couch for a good old shame spiral. 

.

By the time Eddie came back out, Richie had gotten over himself, dragged himself off the couch, and was in the middle of preparing dinner. He heard Eddie’s footsteps pause in the entranceway to the kitchen and deliberately didn’t turn around, staring down at the stove in front of him. Normal, normal, he needed to act normal.

“Eggs okay? I still haven’t gone grocery shopping so I’m kinda strapped for actual dinner food,” Richie said, waving his spatula in the air. A thought occurred to him and he laughed. “Eggs! Eggs for Eds!” He poked at the eggs, waiting for the death threat that was surely coming.

“Richie,” Eddie said, instead of threatening murder. 

“Mmm?” Richie said, and took his eyes off the sizzling pan long enough to get a proper look at Eddie’s face. He looked pale and unhappy, his lips pressed tightly together. 

“Hey, hey, what is it?” Richie abandoned his eggs and crossed over to Eddie, gently poking a finger into his bicep. “Who shit in your cereal?”

“What? No, I—” Eddie shook his head as if to clear it. “Richie, I have to go back to New York.”

“Oh,” Richie said, and removed his finger.

“Myra insisted on buying me tickets. The flight’s tomorrow morning.” Eddie kept his eyes fixed on Richie’s chest. “She says we can deal with the legalities and paperwork back in New York. She—she doesn’t understand why I’m in LA.”

“I can see why she’d be confused,” Richie said diplomatically. “Considering you showed back up all the way across the country after a month of being missing.”

Eddie lifted his chin and looked Richie in the eyes. “Richie, we need to talk—”

Oh, crap, he wanted to _talk_. Richie fled to the other side of the kitchen, just in time to rescue his eggs from burning. “What time’s the flight? I’ll drive you to the airport.” He scooped them onto two plates and brought them over to the table.

“Richie—”

“C’mon, Eddie.” Richie sat down with a thump, realized he’d forgotten cutlery, and went to grab those. When he turned around, Eddie was staring at him with the saddest fucking eyes in the universe, Jesus Christ which puppy had he stolen those from?

Richie sighed. “Can we not? You’re going back to your wife tomorrow. What’s the point?”

It was honestly impressive how fast the puppy dog eyes turned into murder eyes. “Fine.” Eddie grabbed a fork and stabbed at his eggs so hard the tines clanged off the plate. “Fine.”

“Great,” Richie said.

“Great!” Eddie snapped. 

.

Richie dreamed that night. He was back in the darkness, surrounded by twinkling stars like someone had tripped and scattered diamonds across the sky, and the turtle was looking at him. Somehow, he could tell it was disappointed, but he had no idea why.

“Aw, crap, again?” Richie said. “If you have something to tell me, couldn’t you figure out how to transmit mystical visions through, like, email or—or fax?”

The turtle huffed; warm air scented with a thousand conflicting smells washed over Richie, and then the turtle said, _Don’t hide._

“I’m not,” Richie said automatically.

_Don’t hide. Don’t hide. Don’t—_

But the dream was changing, flickering in and out like a bad signal, even as the turtle continued its relentless rolling chant. The darkness of space collapsed into shards, taking the turtle with it, and Richie was left kneeling in a dank cavern, distant screams echoing around him and a body he knew all too well before him.

“I can get him out,” he said. “I can get him out.” But the body was fused to the stone ground. Richie scrabbled and pulled, his hands growing bloody with effort. “I can get him out, I can, I can get him—”

“Richie,” said a voice. “Wake up.”

So Richie woke up.

Eddie’s face was in shadow above him, thrown into relief in the light emanating from the hallway.

“Eddie?” Richie said groggily. “Sorry, I—”

“You were talking in your sleep,” Eddie said. “It sounded…intense.”

“Uh, you could say that.” Richie scrubbed a hand through his hair. He was shivering in the aftermath of the dream, feeling cold and shocky. The quiet, dim stillness of his bedroom felt unreal after that stark and alien cavern. 

Eddie patted clumsily at the lump of Richie’s leg under the blanket. “You okay?”

“Just a dream,” Richie said.

Eddie hesitated, then said, “You want to tell me what it was about?” 

Richie dragged himself up and leaned against the pillows, avoiding Eddie’s gaze. “Take a guess.”

Eddie was silent for a drawn-out moment, long enough that Richie glanced back up at him. He had a strange look on his face—that same, strange look he’d had on his face all the time as a ghost, something that would be almost pained if it weren’t so distant and pensive. At last, he said, “Can we talk? Please?”

The dream had stripped away any possibility of pretense. At that moment, Richie could tell nothing but the truth. “I don’t want to talk,” he sighed, and knew he sounded tired. Exhausted. Hollowed out. 

Eddie bit his lip and looked at him some more, with that same pensive, sad look. He said, “Okay. We don’t have to talk about it yet. Later, yeah?”

In answer, Richie slid back down until he was lying flat beneath the covers; he could feel the mattress depressed where Eddie was sitting on it, and, faintly, the heat of his body. 

“Later,” Eddie said again, and jerked his head in a tiny nod, as if agreeing with himself. “Yeah. We can do this later.” He again patted the blanketed mound that was Richie’s leg and said, “Good night.”

And then he left Richie there, lying in the dark and staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about caverns, or bodies, or ‘later’. 

.

Eddie didn’t have any other clothes, on account of having been, until the previous morning, dead. Richie took one look at him coming out of his bedroom in his polo and hoodie, now grubby from being Day Two clothes, and immediately offered up his closet. 

He spent a very enjoyable twenty minutes handing Eddie increasingly outlandish items from his closet with a completely straight face. It took Eddie the full twenty minutes to catch on.

“There’s no way I can wear that in public, Richie, you know that,” Eddie said, frowning at the neon yellow shirt with the ME GUSTA meme face plastered cross the front.

“It glows in the dark, Eddie,” Richie said, striving to keep his tone entirely casual. “It’s practical.”

“I just don’t think it’s something I can pull off,” Eddie said, and gingerly placed it with the button-up shirt covered in tiny cartoon dicks, the bright purple mesh tanktop, and the skull-patterned women’s crop top someone had tossed at Richie during a show. “Do you have anything more…plain? I know you have shitty taste, but you must have a normal T-shirt or _something_.”

“I dunno, Eds, I’m not really one for plain,” Richie sighed. “Look, I was just trying to help you out. Do you a favour, you know. I’ll go fuck myself, I guess.”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said, in a really sincere voice that forced Richie to shove his face into the closet in an attempt to stifle his laughter. “I do appreciate you trying, it’s just—Richie.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Are you laughing?”

“No,” Riche choked out.

“I’m going to murder you,” Eddie seethed, and shoved Richie forward, even further into the closet. Richie collapsed on the floor of his closet, shirts raining down on him, and laughed so hard he cried.

“You think you’re so goddamn funny!” Eddie yelled, standing over Richie. He kicked at him with his foot, and then again and again. “I’m gonna fucking strangle you to death with that mesh monstrosity and no one would fucking convict me! You walking, talking piece of shit!”

“I—I was just trying to do you a favour!” Richie gasped.

“I’ll favour you with my _fist_ if you don’t shut up,” Eddie growled, and started rifling through Richie’s drawers, deliberately tossing the occasional shirt over to land on Richie. Richie was starting to be more shirt than man. “I’m taking this, and this, and—” Eddie pulled out a sweater, two black T-shirts, and a pair of Richie’s sweatpants. 

“Hey, those are my favourite sweatpants!” Richie protested.

“They’re mine now,” Eddie said. “I’m sure you have a pair of booty shorts that say—say SUCK MY DICK on it or some shit to wear instead.”

“Aww, Eds.” Richie struggled into a sitting position. “If you wanted to know what I wear in the bedroom with your mom, you just had to ask.”

“My mother! Is dead!” Eddie yelled, and then stormed out.

Richie lay back in his nest of shirts and sighed. Operation: Act Normal was trucking along smoothly. Eddie hadn’t even attempted to ask to ‘talk’ or brought up their late-night conversation. 

And it had been a great morning. Eddie was still alive and there when Richie woke up, which made it the first really good morning he’d had since that morning a month ago, when he’d woken up hungover in his dumpy room in the Town House, in a puddle of his own vomit, and remembered that Eddie was dead. It was a low bar but things were really looking up.

“Richie!” Eddie’s head appeared in his bedroom doorway. “You have to drive me to the airport, remember?”

And that effectively put a pin in the giant balloon of Richie’s good feelings. “Right, you’re leaving soon,” Richie said, and struggled to his feet, joints protesting loudly the entire way up. 

.

Seeing Eddie dressed in Richie’s clothes was, unfortunately, so crazy-making that Richie immediately started sweating and had to excuse himself to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face.

“Yes,” he told his reflection in an undertone. “Yes, the shirt is a bit big on him. Yes, he’s a small man who is wearing your clothing. He’s also a married man and you need to keep it the fuck together.”

The Richie in the mirror didn’t look like he had it together. He looked like he’d just seen the love of his life wearing his clothing, playing with the hem, the collar slipping ever so slightly down one slim shoulder. 

“Keep it the fuck together,” Richie threatened, and emerged from the bathroom to meet his doom.

.

Richie knew that Eddie had to go back. He’d known it from the moment Eddie had mentioned his wife. Eddie had a life beyond Richie’s apartment, beyond Richie. He might have spent two full days with Richie, but that was because the universe had physically trapped him there.

Richie been able to push it out of his mind over the past day and a half, too focused on acting normal and never letting the conversation even stray close to the giant truth bomb he’d accidentally dropped, but now, heading to the airport with Eddie in the passenger seat complaining about his driving, the knowledge was weighing on him heavily.

What, did he really think Eddie was just going to stay with him forever? That their little pocket of limbo would stretch out with no end? Richie had gotten to have Eddie for a brief, shiningly painful moment, and now it was time to let go and let Eddie get back to his actual life.

His life with his wife and no Richie in it. Richie would have to be content with what he’d had.

“Eyes on the road, Richie!” Eddie barked. “Every day, nine people die due to distracted drivers!”

“You literally crashed your car when Mike called you,” Richie said. “You have no leg to stand on here.”

“I have all the legs to stand on,” Eddie said. “You see, I, unlike most of the population, am actually a good driver. The rest of the population, despite what they may think, are pieces of shit who don’t deserves licenses.”

“And I, unlike the rest of the population, have a big dick,” Richie said.

“Your dick isn’t relevant to this situation!” 

“That’s not what your mom said to me last night,” Richie said, even though as far as mom jokes went, it was a weak one.

“I can’t believe I thought I would miss you,” Eddie said, which so disarmed Richie that he didn’t make another joke until they reached the airport.

When they hit the horseshoe, Eddie told Richie to just drop him off outside the terminal.

Richie kept his eyes on the road and his tone casual. “Uh, you sure? I was gonna park and walk you in.”

“I’m sure,” Eddie said. 

So Richie pulled over and left the car running while he jumped out to help Eddie with his bags—only, there was no point, because all Eddie had was the tiny duffle Richie had loaned him full of Richie’s stuff and Eddie’s wallet and his printed out tickets and a photocopy of his passport Myra had sent, just in case. All of Eddie’s other things from Derry—his many suitcases, his fucking toiletry bag—had been sent to Myra after the initial police investigation.

Richie stood there, feeling exposed and stupid, while Eddie straightened his T-shirt (an old one of Richie’s, from back when he hadn’t been quite so big, so it fit better) and pulled the duffle bag’s straps across his chest.

“So,” Richie said and trailed off immediately. His insides felt simultaneously frozen and churning.

“So,” Eddie mimicked, smiling a little. Then he looked up at Richie and must have gotten a sense for how messed-up Richie was feeling, because his smile faded. “Thanks for taking such good care of me,” he said. 

That hit Richie so squarely in the feelings that he immediately and without thinking said, “Anytime. Anything. Anywhere,” way too sincerely and had to close his mouth and wish for death.

Eddie just looked at him, his eyes so dark, his mouth tugging to the side. Richie couldn’t read him right then, couldn’t think—his brain was full of _Eddie’s leaving he’s leaving you had him and now he’s going away_ and _Thank you for taking such good care of me_.

“I know you didn’t want to talk,” Eddie said, speaking slowly as if he were choosing his words. “But I wanted to say one thing.” 

“Yeah?” Richie said hoarsely.

“I fucked your mom, Richie,” Eddie said, then stood on tiptoes, kissed Richie’s cheek, and walked away before Richie could react.

.

Richie was fully crying by the time he hit the highway. He cried for a good ten minutes, snuffling and wiping at his nose with his sleeve, trying to keep his eyes open and clear enough to see the road. Eddie’s absence ached like a gaping wound torn right through him.

Once he calmed enough that he was only letting out the occasional shuddering sigh, he called Mike up.

“Richie?”

“You never told me about your ghost hike,” Richie said, and let out a huge sniffle he couldn’t suppress. 

Mike, mercifully, didn’t say anything about that, just told Richie mournfully, “There wasn’t a ghost.”

“Plot twist!” Richie said.

“It was an abandoned cabin with a nest of racoons. They were very aggressive racoons at least…they chased us out of there.” Mike heaved a sigh. “So it wasn’t _all_ boring.”

“Major bummer,” Richie said, and let Mike tell him about the next destination on the Beaches of America tour the entire drive home.

Mike had been a good distraction, but he wasn’t with Richie when he walked into his apartment. Maybe if he had been, Richie wouldn’t have immediately been bowled over by the memory of Eddie’s soft lips brushing his cheek, the way he’d had to lean up to get level to Richie’s face.

And what he’d said, whatever he’d meant by it… “I fucked your mom,” Richie said, musingly, lingeringly, trying to remember the exact intonations Eddie had used. 

Then he was back in the cavern, Eddie’s face slack, eyes clouding, the blood staining his mouth and chin black in the dim light. “I fucked your mom,” Eddie mumbled, spitting words out in staccato beats. 

Richie shook his head until the memory fell away, centering himself on the feel of the floor beneath his socked feet, the way the overhead light drilled into his eyes. He was in his apartment. He was safe. Eddie was safe, and alive, and healthy. But a nagging feeling of wrongness remained—without Eddie there, solid and in front of him, it was hard to accept that he really was back, and not abandoned beneath Derry.

Shaking slightly, Richie dropped onto the couch and did a couple of deep breathing exercises Mike had sent him at one point. They worked, well enough that he slid into sleep without realizing sleep was even on its way. 

He dreamed. He was back in that endless void of space, the turtle staring him down with its infinitely old, infinitely wise eyes.

“Again?” Richie said, and let his limbs hang loose, floating in the empty nothingness of the dream. “Well, say what you gotta say, my dude.”

The turtle drew closer and said, _He fucked your mom, Richie_.

“Excuse me?” Richie said.

 _He fucked your mom_ , the turtle said again, calmly.

“So I’m just gonna get the shitballs insane prophetic dreams, huh,” Richie said, and woke up.

.

Richie knew that Eddie had made it back to New York and the loving arms of his wife because he received a text from an unknown number the next evening with, _Hello, this is Eddie. I’m in New York. I just got a new phone_.

Richie smiled at that, because he was pathetic and Eddie’s prim texting style was, god help him, endearing, and sent back: _new phone who dis_

_Add me to the group chat, Richie._

_thirsty_ , Richie sent back. 

__Richie hadn’t checked the group chat in a couple of weeks. At first, he’d kept up with the messages, waiting to see what the others would do or say as they returned to normal life, but the bitterness had gotten to him. The alienation. At how Bill could so easily talk about heading back to LA while Audra filmed, or Stan could send pictures of his and Patty’s vacation in Buenos Aires, while Richie couldn’t sleep the night through without waking up screaming._ _

__The feeling that he was alone and worlds away from the others, that they were healing and moving on and forgetting, while Richie was stuck being crushed beneath an impossibly huge grief he just couldn’t shake off…well, he just hadn’t been able to take it, anymore. He’d stopped even pretending to keep up, stopped answering calls, stopped everything._ _

__But Eddie was back, things were—ostensibly—fixed, and Richie had to stop blaming his friends for his own stupid feelings and inability to get over them._ _

So he added Eddie to the chat with the message _SPAGHETTI’S HERE,_ and at least ten spaghetti emojis, and laughed at Eddie’s stilted intro text ( _Hello everyone. Hope your day is going well. Richie told me you had a group chat._ ). 

__Stan called him while Richie was, in theory, cleaning his bathroom. In actuality, he was sitting on the edge of the bathtub scrolling through Twitter while telling himself he was about to start cleaning any second. Richie picked up the call, in the spirit of turning over a new leaf, and immediately regretted it when Stan said, “So you’re talking to us again.”_ _

__“Fuck off,” Richie said automatically._ _

__“Hmmm,” Stan said. “Why don’t you try that again?”_ _

__“If you’re going to yell at me, can you just do it already?”_ _

__“I didn’t call you to yell at you,” Stan said mildly. “I just wanted to tell you that I missed you.”_ _

__It was the exact thing to say to break Richie, and Stan, damn him, probably knew it._ _

__“You don’t have to say anything,” Stan continued, without waiting for Richie to respond. Probably because he knew Richie was frozen in place with his mouth open. “It’s been a difficult month for all of us, and we all mourned differently. Some of us cried a lot into their wife’s shoulder, for example. Some of us had a nervous breakdown and stopped talking to anyone for a month. I do understand—and no, I’m not being sarcastic. In the end, I’m just glad we have Eddie back.”_ _

__He went on, his voice just as mild and steady as if he were telling Richie the weather forecast. “And I just wanted to ask—and this is all I’ll say on the topic unless you tell me otherwise—have you considered why you were hit so, hmmm, differently by what happened to Eddie than the rest of us?”_ _

__“Uhhhhhhh,” Richie said._ _

__“Just something to think about. Talk soon, I love you,” Stan said, and hung up._ _

__._ _

__This is what had happened: The first morning after Eddie had died, Stan had knocked on Richie’s door to bid him goodbye before flying back to Atlanta and Patty. When Richie didn’t answer, Stan had opened the unlocked door to find Richie passed out next to a puddle of his own vomit._ _

__Richie knew these things had happened because Stan had told him afterward._ _

__“It’s a fucking tragedy, what happened to Eddie,” he’d told Richie in that hotel room, furiously dragging Richie into the bathroom. “I know! I know! But Eddie wouldn’t fucking want this for you!”_ _

__He’d added, after he’d forced Richie into the shower: “You can’t fucking do this to us. We lost Eddie, we can’t lose you too.”_ _

__“You’re one to talk,” Richie had snarled out, half-mad with grief and woozy with alcohol._ _

__“That was the clown,” Stan had said, very calmly. He’d made no move to cover the bandages on his left wrist. “And Patty stopped me before I cut too deep. Who will stop you, if you won’t let us in?”_ _

__._ _

__So, really, it was Stan’s right to ask that question. Didn’t stop it fucking Richie up any less. Nor the underlying meaning beneath Stans’ words—the suggestion of what he knew. Stan always had been too observant._ _

__Hearing from Stan had been enough to break through whatever was left of the high horse Richie had been riding on in the aftermath of Eddie’s death, and give him a thorough dunking in a lake of guilt. Richie had been fucked up with grief, yes—but perhaps, just maybe, he’d also acted kinda shitty to his friend. So Richie did a bit of apologizing._ _

__The Great Apology Tour of Fall 2015 started with Ben, because he was sweet, and very nice, and didn’t say all that much, and therefore seemed less likely to yell at Richie. Except, after Richie mumbled a half-apology, Ben said very gently, “It was really painful, you ignoring my calls.”_ _

__Richie’s entire body froze up. “Oh, um—”_ _

__“It’s hard to want to help someone, and not be able to,” Ben continued, still so fucking gentle and sorrowful. “To sit and watch them suffer. You’re my friend, Richie. If you’re hurting or need help, I’m here for you.”_ _

__Richie felt like a worm. A worm that had been smashed flat into a mud puddle and left to drown in its own hideous juices._ _

__“Sorry, Ben,” he whispered._ _

__“Don’t worry about it,” Ben said. “I’m just happy to hear you’re doing better.”_ _

__Richie felt so emotionally drained after that one that he had to take a quick snack break before he called Bill. He was calling Bill next because he didn’t want to call Bev. Except he’d forgotten to account for the fact that Bill had grown from an intense and guilt-ridden child into an intense, guilt-ridden, and extremely emotionally oblivious adult._ _

__“Oh!” Bill said. “Thanks, I guess! You really don’t have to apologize, it sounded like you were having kind of a hard time?”_ _

__“Yes?” Richie said._ _

__“I’m really sorry to hear that,” Bill said sincerely. “Anything I can do?”_ _

__“Nah, I’m all good, Billy,” Richie said. “How’s the wife?”_ _

__“You don’t want to know,” Bill said darkly._ _

__With Ben and Bill out of the way, there was only Beverly left, really. The prospect freaked Richie out so bad he delayed it the entire rest of the day until midnight, hoping to miss her completely and just text her instead._ _

__His plans were foiled when she actually picked up._ _

__“Hello, Richie.” Her voice was very calm._ _

_Fuck_ , Richie mouthed to himself. “Bev! You’re up late.” 

__“And yet you’re calling me at this late hour.”_ _

__“Yes,” Richie said. “Yes, I am.”_ _

__Bev didn’t say anything, and Richie knew why. He knew it was up to him to break the silence._ _

__Because the last time he’d talked to Beverly face to face, it had been back at the Town House, the night of the day Eddie had died. Richie had come out of the shower, Eddie’s blood and sewer slime both thoroughly scrubbed away, as if nothing had happened._ _

__Beverly had been waiting for him, standing by his bed._ _

__She’d said: “Richie.”_ _

__And that had been enough for Richie. The memory of her kissing Ben so happily in the quarry had churned in his mind, alongside the memory of Eddie’s slack, cold face and Bev’s voice saying, so quietly, “I think he’s dead.”_ _

__Richie had said, “I’m not fucking talking to you.” Because he was a piece of shit. “You told him. You gave it to him and you told him it would kill monsters. But it didn’t, did it?”_ _

__“Richie—”_ _

__“Fuck off, Beverly!” he’d yelled, loud and cruel as he could get, and god, he was a piece of shit, a piece of shit on the heel of a bigger piece of shit._ _

__So Beverly had left and Richie had drunk himself to a stupor for Stan to find and scrape up the next morning. There were a lot of moments he wasn’t proud of in his life—but that one had made it to the top three._ _

__With the memory fresh on his mind, Richie told Beverly, “I’m sorry.” Then he was crying, again, because he hadn’t done enough crying yet apparently. “I was a complete asshole and I’m really fucking sorry.”_ _

__“Richie—”_ _

__“I should never have said that to you,” Richie said. “I—I was so angry and just—out of my mind, and I took it all out on you. It wasn’t your fault, and I’m so sorry I ever made you believe that.”_ _

__“It wasn’t your fault either,” Bev said. Her voice was unsteady. “What happened to Eddie. It wasn’t your fault.”_ _

Words were crowding behind Richie’s teeth, piling up on his tongue, words like, _But I left him_ and _I should have carried him out, I could have helped him_ and _If I hadn’t gotten caught in those fucking deadlights_ , words he couldn’t say because he was apologizing to Beverly, not laying his sins at her feet to be absolved. 

__Anyway, those words didn’t matter anymore, did they? Richie had left Eddie and maybe Richie could have carried him out and maybe he could have helped him and things might have been different if he hadn’t gotten caught in the deadlights, but it was all moot because Eddie was back. Richie had done the terrible things he’d done and they’d burned in his chest for a month, and the universe had taken a look and shrugged and gave him Eddie back._ _

__“I’m sorry,” he said again. “And I’m sorry for ghosting you for a month. My behaviour was really shitty and I vow to do better from now on.”_ _

__“Thank you,” Beverly said. “I appreciate the apology. Don’t yell at me like you did that night ever again, please.”_ _

__Shame burned in Richie anew. “Promise.”_ _

__“Then we’re good,” Beverly said. “I love you.”_ _

__“I love you too,” Richie said, closing his eyes, and feeling the rightness of it all as she slotted back into his heart alongside the others._ _

__._ _

__So it turned out not stewing in guilt and grief and avoiding your friends was really beneficial for a person’s mental health. Richie stopped having so many nightmares, actually cleaned his bathroom, started texting in the group chat regularly. It felt good. Really freaking good._ _

__It felt so good that he actually, one morning, gave a passing thought to his career._ _

__Just a thought though—he wasn’t quite at a point where he could pick up the pieces of what was left of it and make something of it. Still, though, even considering it was a good sign. He felt like he was thinking clearly for the first time in too long._ _

There was only one dark cloud hanging over him and that was Eddie. Specifically, Eddie’s texts, and Richie’s new policy of ignoring them. Two days after the Great Apology Tour of Fall 2015, Eddie had texted, _Can we talk?_ Which had sent Richie down such a panic spiral that he’d ignored both that text, and every single one of Eddie’s subsequent texts over the days that followed. 

__Part of him, the part that still cringed at the memory of what he’d told Eddie all those days ago, thought that avoiding that particular minefield was a very good idea. Another part of him, a raw, vulnerable part, couldn’t stop thinking about Eddie in New York, back in his house with his wife, going to his adult job and driving his enormous car. Was there a place for Richie amidst all that? He wasn’t sure and he was neither brave enough nor emotionally strong enough to try and find out._ _

__This lasted a week, before Eddie called him. He’d only texted until then, which had been easy enough to ignore. The call was new territory, so Richie, in the middle of unloading groceries, panicked and stabbed at his phone screen to decline the call, except the universe was laughing at him and his thumb slipped on the answer button instead._ _

__“Fuck,” Richie whispered, and brought the phone to his ear. “Eduardo!”_ _

__“Richie.” Eddie sounded unamused._ _

__“Wassup?” Richie said breezily, and then made a panicked incredulous face at himself. Eddie didn’t even bother to respond to that._ _

__“Why have you been ignoring me?” he demanded, because Eddie was not what people would call subtle._ _

__“Uhhhhhh—”_ _

__“Don’t play stupid with me, asshole. I texted you at least ten times this week, and you know how much you texted me? Zero times. Zero times, Richie!”_ _

__Richie couldn’t deny it and he couldn’t explain it, because explaining it would mean touching on the thing he was determined to never talk about. So he didn’t say anything at all._ _

__“Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Eddie sounded really, truly upset. Shit. “Remember when you said that if I’d been alive, you’d be bugging me all the time? Calling me up every day? Well, here I am, fucking alive thanks to fucking turtle magic, and my best friend is ghosting me.”_ _

__“Who told you what ghosting means?” was what Richie’s mouth produced._ _

“Who tol—no one! No one had to _tell_ me what ghosting was, Jesus, I’m not eighty years old.” 

__“You text with full punctuation,” Richie pointed out._ _

“I can use punctuation _and_ know Internet slang terms! The two aren’t mutually fucking exclusive, Jesus fuck, Richie.” 

__“Every single one of your texts read like an eighty-year-old grandma who think she’s writing a letter.”_ _

__“Are you saying you’ve been ignoring me because my texting style bothers you so much?” Eddie challenged. It was a steel bear trap of a question, just waiting for Richie to give some stupid excuse before snapping down on him, hard._ _

__Crap. Richie’s distraction technique had backfired spectacularly._ _

__“I don’t fucking understand you, Richie. Why don’t you want to talk to me? Why can’t we just talk about it?” Eddie’s voice was brimming with hurt. Hurt Richie had put there. Hurt Richie was fully responsible for._ _

__Richie would do a lot of stupid things for Eddie. He’d reset a broken arm for him. He’d try and drag his dead body out of a collapsing cavern for him. He’d spend hours researching ghosts and turtles for him._ _

__He’d dig out his heart and offer it up for Eddie to do as he wished with it, he’d peel off his skin and stand bare and raw before him, he’d torture himself if it meant Eddie was spared even a moment of pain._ _

__“I’m sorry, Eds,” he said. So many apologies. Would Richie ever stop hurting his friends? One day, apologies wouldn’t be enough to fix it. “It’s just. After what I told you. I’ve—I’ve been trying to act normal. To be, you know, your friend, and—” the words were fighting him as they came out; Richie gritted his teeth and forced himself to continue: “—and just your friend, and not get my stupid gay feelings all over you. But it’s been, you know. Kinda difficult.”_ _

__Eddie was silent, for an endless, excruciating moment. Then he said, “I’m getting a divorce.”_ _

__Richie hung up._ _

__It was a kneejerk reaction born entirely of pure panic, because the weight of wanting had so overwhelmed him at hearing those words that he’d almost blurted out, there and then, “I love you.” And that would be bad. Hadn’t he learned from the last time?_ _

__“Fuck!” he yelled. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”_ _

__And then, because he was a coward, he turned off his phone and left it off as he finished putting his groceries away, as he watched TV, made dinner and ate it, took a long shower, and went to bed._ _

__He lay there in the dark and mused on how he was a bad person. Because he was, there was no doubt about it. No matter what he did, he was hurting Eddie. He needed to face facts._ _

__He’d spent his childhood locking away his feelings for Eddie as best he could. He’d lost the love with the memories, but it had returned with a vengeance with his first look at Eddie in the restaurant. Even then, he’d managed to get a handle on them. With Eddie’s death, though, the floodgates had disintegrated. Pandora had opened the box and everything was escaping, in one giant disastrous month-long explosion._ _

__Richie needed to scoop up all those messy, decades-long feelings and stick them right back into that box and never let them get out again, because they were hurting Eddie. Eddie may not love Richie, but he was his best friend—he wouldn’t have continued reaching out to Richie after that confession if he didn’t want Richie’s friendship._ _

__With the situation laid out like that, stark and bare, Richie knew what he had to do. He had to be there for Eddie, in whatever capacity Eddie needed him. So Richie would spend the day tomorrow working to board that part of him up again, to hide it away from the light of day. Then, with the wild, hopeless, unending love that was Richie’s burden locked up safely, he would reach out to Eddie and finally resume normalcy. It would be painful, but worth it._ _

__With that resolution clutched close to his heart, Richie drifted off to sleep, feeling the bittersweet peace of a difficult and painful decision finally made._ _

__Richie dreamed. The turtle was looking at him with sorrow in its eyes, sorrow written across every line of its ancient, wrinkled face._ _

_Don’t hide_ , it said. 

__Richie said, “I don’t have any other choice.”_ _

_Look_ , the turtle said. 

Then the turtle—did something. The star-speckled expanse they were floating in began to spin, then contract, zooming in like a camera focusing. Richie never moved but the turtle’s eyes got bigger and bigger, the tiny spinning galaxies and nebulas and suns in its eyes growing sharper, more focused, until it was all Richie could see—until he could see planets and countries and cities and homes, could see all of time itself, could see people living and dying, fighting and killing and loving, generations and generations and generations— 

__Then he was looking at Derry: the green slash of the Barrens running through it, the downtown core nestled amidst the hills, the Kenduskeag and the familiar roads…but something was wrong with it. There was a blackness running through Derry, a stain so dark that it was like a wound scored in it, deep enough it seemed it could never be fixed._ _

__Then something in his chest burned, so sharp and sudden that he cried out. He looked down and saw that same darkness deep inside him, like a chunk of flesh torn out._ _

_It hurt you_ , the turtle said. 

__Richie couldn’t take his eyes off it: the stark damage, the black wrongness, the pulsating pain._ _

_Look_ , the turtle said, and Richie looked closer. Somewhere deep inside him, he saw six sparks glowing, and knew, somehow, that those were his friends. He felt their love: the love they had for each other and for him, too, the enormous, encompassing, unconditional love—love that could defeat monsters and chase away the dark. 

__It could heal him too, if only he would let it._ _

_There’s no more I can do for you_ , the turtle said. _It’s all in your hands now._

__“What is?” Richie asked._ _

_Everything_ , the turtle said. 

__Richie woke up._ _

__He lay in bed and let the love fill him up, head to toe. Washing through him, cleansing everything in its path._ _

Then he turned his phone back on and texted, _I’m gay_ , to the chat, lay back and let himself be. Let himself feel all he was, all he knew and did and wanted, and who he loved. Let himself exist, fully and truly himself, for the first time in his life, nothing hidden and nothing held back. 

Messages were pouring in on the chat, heart emojis and _thank you for telling us_ and Bev calling him honey, but he ignored that. He texted Eddie separately, _I love you. I’m sorry for hurting you._

__Eddie called him immediately. Richie answered, heart pounding. “Eddie—”_ _

__“Shut up, Richie. It’s my turn to talk,” Eddie said. He barrelled on before Richie could even open his mouth. “You’ve been driving me fucking crazy! You drop the biggest bomb of my life—well, second biggest actually, the whole "your mom is feeding you fake medications for your fake illnesses thing" was pretty fucking big—and then you refuse to talk about it or even mention it and every time I try you run away or look like you’re gonna puke—” He was talking fast, the way he had as a child when something had set him off, rapid fire bursts of words with barely a breath in between. “You can’t toss revelations like that on people and then clam up again, Jesus, Richie! It’s called communication! It’s called respect! It’s called being an adult!”_ _

__“Eddie,” Richie said miserably._ _

“Don't you dare hang up on me!” Eddie took a deep breath. “You wanted time so I gave you time. To be honest, I needed it too. I’d just come back from the dead! Do you know how much of a hassle coming back to life is? There’s paperwork—my job I got fired from because I went missing for a month—my wife—the fucking nightmares because _I died_ —" 

__He trailed off. Richie, not understanding what the point of all this was, was about to interrupt when Eddie started up again. His voice was less forceful this time, more hushed and tentative. “And I needed time to think. Do a little processing. Figure some shit out.”_ _

__“Eddie—” Richie tried again._ _

__But Eddie just kept going, as if he’d been stoppering it all up for too long and it was all finally coming out. “Dying does a lot to you, Richie, did you know that? It makes you see the things you never saw because you were too busy with all the bullshit people piled on you. I’ve been trying to tell you this for days, so I’m just gonna say it now, okay? Before you fucking hang up on me again, you piece of shit. I need to tell you that I—I love you.”_ _

__“What?” Richie said blankly._ _

__“I thought maybe I should wait for a better time to tell you. When I have my life more figured out, when I have more to offer you. It would be the responsible thing to do. But...I'm sick of waiting. We've been waiting years! Decades! I don’t want to wait anymore. So—I’m gay, I’m getting a divorce, and I love you. And—and I'm here if you want me. That is....if you still want me.”_ _

__Richie wanted it so much his body trembled with it. It was too good, too much like everything he’d never let himself hope for. Richie was scared to even believe it, to open his heart up to it—because if it was a lie or a misunderstanding, it would wreck Richie forever._ _

__“Eddie,” he whispered. “Do you mean it?”_ _

__“What do I have to say to have you believe me?” Then Eddie’s voice softened, dipped into something quiet and hushed, intimate. “Richie, baby, I love you. I love you. I think I always loved you and just never realized it until I was lying there dying and looking at you and knowing I was never going to see you again. I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”_ _

__What could Richie do but let the longing take him over?_ _

__“I’m done with New York,” Eddie told him, still soft, still so fucking gentle. “I want to come home. Can I come home, Richie?”_ _

__Richie choked out, “Always.”_ _

__._ _

__Eddie issued a number of statements and demands. He said he would fly into LA on Friday. He said he would stay for a week. He said he wouldn’t need a ride from the airport, though Richie insisted. He said that if Richie chickened out again, he would punch Richie right in the stupid overbite._ _

__Richie nodded and agreed, agreed, agreed, with a sense of unreality._ _

__The next few days were spent in breathless agonized anticipation. Richie considered getting a haircut. He cleaned the entire apartment top to bottom twice. He threw up what was probably too many times._ _

__He spent the fated evening of arrival feeling like he really should have gotten that haircut, and waiting for Eddie to text him for a ride. No text came, though, just a knock as true night began to set in. Richie pulled open the door and Eddie was there, looking clean and neat and so fucking handsome despite the fact that he was just off the plane._ _

__“Oh, you didn’t tell me you lande—” Richie said, and then Eddie threw his arms around Richie’s neck and flung himself upward and drew Richie into the most batshit insane kiss of his entire life._ _

It was hot and wet and oh god it was Eddie kissing him, _Eddie_ kissing him with this hunger, so fierce he was practically clawing up Richie’s body to get closer. 

__Richie pulled back and said, “Oh my god, you really do love me.”_ _

__“That’s what I’ve been saying, dipshit,” Eddie said, only he breathed it out against Richie’s lips, arms still around Richie’s neck and his eyes big and dark and brimming with something Richie could now see was love._ _

__“I love you,” Richie blurted out. “I love you so much—” and he buried himself in Eddie’s mouth again, let the longing and the love overtake him entirely until he had Eddie fully pressed against him, until he had his tongue in Eddie’s mouth and Eddie’s moans and Eddie, Eddie, Eddie._ _

__“Sofa,” Eddie choked out against Richie’s mouth, sounding just as overcome as Richie himself. “Sofa, c’mon.”_ _

__“Yup,” Richie agreed, and somehow they ended up on the sofa—or, more accurately, Richie ended up on the sofa and Eddie ended up on top of him. Richie stopped kissing him long enough to take in the sight of Eddie fucking Kaspbrak, hair dishevelled and lips swollen, straddling his hips and leaning over Richie. His neck was right there, so Richie kissed it. That made Eddie let out a soft noise, so Richie kissed it again, and then gently bit it and licked at the bite, while Eddie dug his thighs into the sides of Richie’s hips and let out gasping noises that drove Richie insane._ _

__“Isn’t this—a little—fast—” Richie managed to get out in between trailing kisses up Eddie’s jaw. “Shouldn’t we maybe—”_ _

_“Richie,”_ Eddie said, grinding his hips down—and oh god, he was hard, that was Eddie’s dick and it was hard because Richie had made him hard! 

__Richie got hit with a wave of lust so pure and overwhelming, it felt a bit like getting conked over the head with a rock. When he came back to full awareness, Eddie was kissing him again, licking into his mouth, pulling at his hair._ _

__“Richie, I want you—” Eddie gasped out, insistently, so Richie gave in, gave up, arched up into the kiss, pulled Eddie closer, choked out, “Yeah, I want—I want—” into Eddie’s mouth._ _

__Eddie sat up and pulled his shirt off, which had the effect of making Richie cough on air and his mouth dry up because—“Abs!” he said dumbly. “Abs!”_ _

__And no scar—just slightly hairy, muscled, unmarked flesh where the gaping hole had been. Richie pressed a hand against it and felt Eddie’s heart pounding away underneath the fragile layers of skin and muscle and bone._ _

__“I know,” Eddie said quietly. “It’s like it didn’t even happen.”_ _

Richie pulled Eddie back down for a different sort of kiss, a soft one that he hoped said _I love you and please never die again_. Eddie must have gotten the message because he kissed back and it felt like _I love you and I promise but also I didn’t do it on purpose, did I_. 

__“C’mon, now you,” Eddie said, breaking the kiss, and tugged at Richie’s shirt. Richie helped him get it off and then he was laid bare before Eddie in a very literal sense. Eddie looked at Richie and his eyes got very dark and all of a sudden, the lull that they had both fallen into was gone—it felt like the very air was crackling; Eddie leaned down to, oh god, bite at Richie’s chest, and Richie put his hands on Eddie’s ass and squeezed._ _

__“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Eddie muttered._ _

__“Are you sure?” Richie gasped out._ _

__“Richie, please, I want you so much,” Eddie said, and they were kissing again. “Touch me, Richie, c’mon,” Eddie said, so Richie touched. Dug his fingers into Eddie’s hips, stroked his abs, tweaked a nipple, which made Eddie gasp enough that Richie did it again._ _

__“Please,” Eddie moaned, and it made Richie feel insane; he grabbed Eddie and flipped them over until Eddie was beneath him, his dick a hot, thick line against Richie’s thigh. They kissed again and again. Richie was living in a fucking dream._ _

__“Lemme,” he mumbled nonsensically, pulling away and trying to sit up enough he could get at Eddie’s pants._ _

__“No, c’mon—” Eddie said, grabbing him and pulling him close again._ _

“Eddie—” Richie said, meaning to say _Please let me unzip your pants so I can touch your dick and make you come your brains out_ , but Eddie was grinding upward and moaning, “Don’t go, you’re always trying to get away, I won’t let you, I want you—” 

__“Jesus,” Richie gasped out, staggered. Eddie clutched at his back, rolled his hips upwards so their dicks rubbed against each other, delicious friction even through both their pants. “Eddie, let me—”_ _

__“I want you,” Eddie said again, insistent and so fucking needy, god, Richie felt crazy. He ground down and Eddie ground up and it felt so fucking good, oh god, oh god._ _

__Eddie kissed him, deep and wet; Richie sucked on his tongue and let his hips fall into a rhythm, rolling against Eddie. It was all so good, even with the layers separating their dicks: their bare chests rubbing together, the pleasure sparking throughout Richie’s lower body, Eddie’s mouth hot on his._ _

__“Oh god, Eddie,” Richie breathed out, reaching down to pull Eddie’s legs around his waist. “Eddie, Eddie, oh my god.”_ _

Eddie was making choked gasps against Richie’s mouth; he sounded like he was experiencing true bliss and that was _Richie_ making him sound like that— 

__“Is it good, baby?” Richie heard himself say through a haze._ _

__“Uh huh,” Eddie gasped out, and when Richie rolled his hips down again, Eddie let out a moan that was so shockingly dirty Richie almost came there and then. “Come for me, baby,” Richie said, still through that haze. “C’mon, that’s it—”_ _

__Eddie’s hips jerked up, once, twice, again; Richie kissed him through it, muffling Eddie’s choked noises._ _

Eddie pulled away to breath; Richie stroked his hair, ignoring the aching hardness of his own cock, content to lie here and look down at post-orgasmic Eddie, content in the knowledge that _he_ was responsible for post-orgasmic Eddie. 

__Then Eddie pulled back, unzipped Richie’s pants, and stuck his hand down his boxers, and Richie’s brain went entirely offline._ _

__“Guh,” he said, and his hips bucked into Eddie’s hand without his permission. “Guuhhh.”_ _

__“That’s it,” Eddie said. “Yeah, Richie, c’mon.” His hand was tight and perfect around Richie, slick from the wetness Richie had been leaking. “You’re so good to me, you made me feel so good, you took such good care of me—”_ _

__“Oh god,” Richie groaned; Eddie squeezed and rubbed his thumb over the head of Richie’s cock, and that was it for Richie—he came so hard his vision greyed out and he lost his breath entirely._ _

__When he came back to himself, Eddie was rubbing his back. Richie lifted his upper body off Eddie and blinked down at him, still feeling like half his brain was offline._ _

__“Hello,” Richie croaked._ _

__“Hello,” Eddie said, and lifted his head to kiss him._ _

__After a bit of that, Richie felt sufficiently recovered to pull away and glare down at Eddie. “You didn’t tell me you landed!” Richie said, remembering his previous grievance. “I was gonna pick you up from the airport.”_ _

__Eddie shrugged and smiled. “I didn’t want to give you the chance to chicken out.”_ _

__“Is that why you jumped me as soon as you came through the door?”_ _

__Eddie pressed a kiss to Richie’s neck and said, “Well, life-affirming sex is an obligatory part of the resurrection experience.”_ _

__Richie laughed. “Oh really! And you’re an expert on this stuff?”_ _

__“Fuck yeah,” Eddie said. “I’m the one having the resurrection experience. Besides…” he flushed a deep red that made Richie want to kiss him down his neck and to where the flush ended above his bellybutton. “I think…I think I’ve been wanting to do that with you for a really long time.”_ _

__“Me too,” Richie said. He hesitated then carried on. “You should know I’ve…I’ve been in love with you since we were kids.”_ _

__Eddie’s face got soft. “I—it took me a while to realize, but looking back, I think I had a crush on you in high school. I just didn’t realize it was a crush, you know? There are a lot of things I never realized about myself.”_ _

__Richie kissed Eddie again, then drew back and said, trying to summon some of the Trashmouth spirit, “I can’t believe I just had the best sex of my life, on a couch with my fucking pants on.”_ _

__“You’re not the one who came in his underwear like a teenager,” Eddie said, squirming and making a face._ _

__“A certain sex gremlin wouldn’t let me get far enough to remove his pants,” Richie said. “So I’m not taking responsibility for that. I do, however, take responsibility for my dick.”_ _

__Eddie laughed and then bit his lip, his eyes hot. “Next time…I wanna see your dick.”_ _

“I wanna see _your_ dick, Eds my love,” Richie cooed, and swooped down to press a kiss against the very tip of Eddie’s nose, the words _next time_ sending a thrill all through him. 

__._ _

__They ended up in a bed eventually—just to sleep, but it was almost as good as the sex, if Richie was being honest: having Eddie in his bed, tucked under the covers next to Richie and complaining good-naturedly about the quality of toilet paper in airport bathrooms._ _

__The experience was made all the better because it had come after a shower they had taken together, a dinner they had ordered in and eaten together at the table with their knees brushing, and the unexpectedly nice five minutes they’d spent brushing their teeth side by side, grinning at each other in the mirror._ _

__The domesticity of it all gave Richie the courage to ask, at a lull in the conversation, “So what happens next?”_ _

__Eddie rolled over to face him. “I’m not sure. I have the divorce to get through still, and trying to figure out what to do about a job…I was considering a move, somewhere down the line, but it depends on what you think.”_ _

__Richie said, “Do you want to talk about it?”_ _

__“Yes,” Eddie said. “Tomorrow?”_ _

__“Tomorrow,” Richie agreed, and knew he would hold himself to it. “I love you,” he added, for good measure._ _

__He could hear Eddie’s smile, even in the dark. “I love you too.”_ _

__Eventually, Richie slept, and dreamed. He was floating in the vast expanse of space and Eddie was there too, reaching out for him. In the distance, a benevolent and very old turtle was on its way, swimming away through the infinite nothing with slow, steady strokes. They clasped hands and watched, until it was nothing but another speck amidst the stars._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone for reading! I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://moosetifying.tumblr.com/) or [ twitter](https://twitter.com/moosetification)! I'm always looking for more people to yell about these Losers with, because my family has banned me from mentioning Bill Hader or It.


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